WRITING SYSTEMS
There are many ways to write a language, but we are here interested in only two. One is the way that the language has been written or is currently written and the other is how it is written to reflect the spoken language as closely as possible (phonemically).In this last approach, sounds which can signal difference is words are written separately. For example in English one has to write a /b/ and /p/ since there are words like "bill" and "pill" which are distinguished only by one sound. Sometimes we write the same sound many different ways. For example the sound of "f" as in "full" is sometimes written as an "f" and is "full" and sometimes as a "ph" in "phone". In a phonemic writing system there is only one way to write a sound.
Writing systems can approach the language in many ways. Some writing systems which appear in the native cultures in the Americas are basically devices which serve as aids to memory. A picture might stand for an event and depict the event. Anyone knowing the event would be able to recount what had happened, but no two "readers" would narrate the tale exactly the same way. The Kiowa calendar is an example of this kind of writing.
For example a pictographic or ideological writing system writes a symbol for a concept. A drawn "bird", may be the symbol for the animal, the bird. In effect, each symbol stands for a word rather than an sound.
Another approach is to write a symbol for a syllable, rather than a sound. This give a limited number of symbols (although more than if one has a symbol per sound). The Cherokee under Sequoyah developed such a writing system which is known as the Cherokee syllabary.